Haibun: Stop Collecting Things

Too often I start to hold things close to me, letting my stuff build up. Extra clothes, dollars stuffed away in digital spaces, and other things I may need. I don’t want to get caught without again.

But what happens when water collects? When the water pools into one place and stays there, things die. The stench of a pond with no outlet paints itself inside the nose and the memories. 

But a river, one that is flowing through has power and force. If it smells, it often smells like the rocks which it brushes up against, but not like the pond. And powerful, so much power that we’ve harnessed that power for mills and for turbines. 

So as I collect things around me, I’m forced to remember the flow of water. I guess my lesson is that when I don’t have a direction I over collect, but when I have a direction and marshal whatever I have into that one direction, I soon have power.

a world of its own

in the trunk it’s sown,  what’s left

fall fully shown